Cairo, Alexandria And The World Dances With Mahmoud Reda

Long time no see, I know, I know. But there is so much more to write about as well as I promised. Here's the first peace offering. Yes, I was in Cairo.






















The good news is that I didn't have time to take as many pictures as I usually do and thus it might be possible for me to go through them all in a sufferable time and you might actually get to see them at some point in the future.

Here's another picture from Cairo. Don't ask me what the sign says. The flower is pretty though.






















No pictures from Alexandria at the moment. There was even less time for picture taking there. And now here's the story. Last year just before Christmas I auditioned for the El Hosseny Dance Company (why it still says at the web site that they are just founding the company, I have no idea, I think it has existed for at least two years now). As I was in Iceland last spring I couldn't dance with the group before but when I got back to Finland in the beginning of June I called Tuija and asked if I could still join them for the trip to Alexandria and Tuija said yes. So the next day I went to practice and the day after that as well and the day after that and you know the drill.

Why Alexandria then? Well, there was The World Dances With Mahmoud Reda festival. There is no link here as based on my limited experience there generally are no links about anything that happens in Egypt. Now Mahmoud Reda I can link you to many pages even though it's surprising that there is no Wikipedia page about him and I so can't use my default link and chose this link instead as it contains pictures from last year's festival in Alexandria.

In the festival different dance groups around Europe come togeather to perform Mahmoud Reda's choreographies with Egyptian professional male dancers. This year as last year the groups were representing France, Spain, Italy, Switzerland and Finland. We had five shows at the big stage at the New Library of Alexandria in the beginning of July. Our group danced altogether seven dances, four each night. No dance pics yet though, sorry, as obviously they would not be taken by me. However, here's a picture of our group posing with Mahmoud Reda and Farida Fahmy, a legendary principal dancer of the Reda Troupe who came to see the last two shows. To get a glimpse from the past check out Mahmoud Reda, Farida Fahmy and the Reda Troupe on YouTube. This year I think the Italian group performed this piece, correct me if I'm wrong.















Standing from left to right: Laura, Marcela (our Spanish participant), Ilona, Master Mahmoud Reda, our teacher Tuija Rinne, Madame Farida Fahmy, and our teacher Mohamed El Hosseny

Kneeling from left to right: Elise, Milja, Nastya (our Estonian participant), Aino and me

The picture was taken by a professional photographer at the Library, if anybody knows who to credit here, please let me know and I will do so.